Richard Parks (author)

{{about|the speculative fiction author|the rugby player|Richard Parks}} {{Infobox writer |name = Richard Parks |image = |caption = |pseudonym = W. J. Everett |birth_date = {{birth date and age|1955|06|15}} |birth_place = Newton, Mississippi, U.S. |death_date = |death_place = |occupation = Author |genre = Fantasy, science fiction |movement = |notableworks = |debut_works = |influences = |influenced = |website = {{url|https://richard-parks.com/}} }} '''Billy Richard Parks''' (born June 15, 1955) is an American fantasy, science fiction and horror writer. He writes under the names Richard Parks and W. J. Everett, aside from a few early works written as by B. Richard Parks and Rick Parks.<ref name="ISFDB">{{isfdb name|id=597|name=Richard Parks}}</ref>

==Biography== Parks is a native of Mississippi; he was born in Newton.<ref name="ISFDB"/> As an adult, prior to his literary career, he was "a chemist by trade, specializing in paint and polymer films."<ref name="RP">Parks, Richard. "Rick Parks" (autobiographical piece), in ''Amazing/Fantastic'' v. 28, no. 1, July 1981, pages 94-75.</ref> More recently he resided in Ridgeland, Mississippi.<ref name="Hoover">[http://strangehorizons.com/non-fiction/articles/interview-richard-parks/ Hoover, K. Mark. "Interview: Richard Parks," in ''Strange Horizons'' #1, April 1, 2002.]</ref> He now lives in central New York with his wife and cats.<ref name="WS">{{cite web|url=https://richard-parks.com/about/ |title=About|date=9 September 2011|work=richard-parks.com|accessdate=10 January 2017}}</ref>

==Works== Parks "started writing seriously about 1976,"<ref name="Hoover"/><ref name="RP"/> collecting thirty-five rejections before his first professional sale ("The Passing," published in ''Amazing/Fantastic'', v. 28, no. 1, July, 1981).<ref name="RP"/> His work since then has appeared in ''Asimov's Science Fiction'', ''Beneath Ceaseless Skies'', ''Fantasy Magazine'', ''Realms of Fantasy'', ''Tor.com'', ''Weird Tales'' and other periodicals, as well as various anthologies. Early in his career "[h]is most popular recurring character [was] Eli Mothersbaugh, a high-tech ghost hunter based in the sleepy—and oft haunted—imaginary town of Canemill, Mississippi."<ref name="Hoover"/> Many of his fantasies with contemporary settings also make use of Canemill, and its name has been adopted for Canemill Publishing, an imprint through which Parks has issued a number of his books. More recently he has found success with his historical fantasies featuring Yamada no Goji, a demon hunter of Heian period Japan.

==Reception== Parke Godwin called Parks's first collection, ''The Ogre's Wife: Fairy Tales For Grownups'' (2002), "one of the best SF/fantasy collections I've read in years" and wrote of its author that "[l]ike any fine writer [he] doesn't label easily, which makes him hell for lazy-minded pigeonholers, but his themes are consistent and clear. He uses fantasy to underscore reality: the nature of our humanity and the inescapability of what we are, the choices we make and the price we pay for each, right or wrong. ... [H]e can step imperceptibly from deadpan funny to deeply affecting truth with an utterly transparent style that has the reader racing down the page [and] has the rare ability to say profound things simply."<ref name="Godwin">Godwin, Parke. "THE OGRE'S WIFE: Ghosts, Gods, a Dragon, Assorted Legends and Things That Go Bump in the Heart: An Introduction." In ''The Ogre's Wife: Fairy Tales For Grownups'', Obscura Press, 2002.</ref>

Charles de Lint of ''The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction'' praised Parks' "remarkable storytelling" in a voice that is, "sometimes lyrical, sometimes hard-edged; sometimes in a voice that sounds as ancient as the first stories told around our early ancestors' campfires; sometimes in a voice so new that we have yet to hear it."<ref name="DeLintOgre">{{cite news|last1=deLint|first1=Charles|title=The Ogre's Wife and Other Fairy Tales for Grown-Ups|publisher=Fantasy & Science Fiction|date=August 2002|id={{ProQuest|219675409}}}}</ref>

==Recognition== Parks's story "The Ogre's Wife" won the ''SF Age'' Reader's Poll for short story in 1995.<ref name="Hoover"/> His writings have also received nominations for the World Fantasy Award and the Mythopoeic Award;<ref name="WS"/> more specifically, his collection ''The Ogre's Wife: Fairy Tales For Grownups'' (2002), described by one reviewer as an "absolute treasure of a collection,"<ref name="DeLintOgre"/> was nominated for the 2003 World Fantasy Award for Best Collection,<ref name="WFA">[http://www.worldfantasy.org/index.php/awards/nominees/ World Fantasy Convention - List of Nominees for the World Fantasy Award]</ref><ref name="WFAAN">{{cite web|url=http://www.sfadb.com/World_Fantasy_Awards_All_Nominees |title=World Fantasy Awards All Nominees|work=sfadb.com|accessdate=10 January 2017}}</ref> and his novella ''The Heavenly Fox'' (2011) was nominated for the 2012 Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Adult Literature.<ref name="MAAN">{{cite web|url=http://www.sfadb.com/Mythopoeic_Awards_All_Nominees |title=Mythopoeic Awards All Nominees|work=sfadb.com|accessdate=10 January 2017}}</ref>

==Bibliography== {{Main|Richard Parks bibliography}}

==Notes== {{reflist}}

==References== * Griffin, Jude, and McNeil, Kevin, "Author Spotlight: Richard Parks," in ''Lightspeed Magazine'' #36, May 2013

{{DEFAULTSORT:Parks, Richard}} Category:1955 births Category:Living people Category:American fantasy writers Category:American science fiction writers Category:Novelists from Mississippi Category:21st-century American novelists Category:American male novelists Category:People from Newton, Mississippi Category:People from Ridgeland, Mississippi Category:21st-century American male writers Category:21st-century pseudonymous writers